


A Bar Scene

by michaelLemieux



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Sort of? - Freeform, dean's 'work friends' are the omcs, sorry if the writing is a bit shit, this is a really old thing that im finally uploading to ao3, tw for cutting?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:20:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7551100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michaelLemieux/pseuds/michaelLemieux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone notices the scars on Dean's arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bar Scene

“What’re those?” Rod asks innocently. He didn’t mean the question to run straight through to Dean’s armored heart and reminding him that it lay in shattered pieces in his ribs, the shards stabbing at his organs with every breath. 

 

But that’s what it did. 

 

“I didn’t know you had any scars,” another coworker says, leaning in for a better look a Dean’s arms. Now that Rod’s pointed them out, it’s hard not to look. To see every clean, straight line of white flesh on Dean’s arms. 

 

Dean’s silent, he’s staring down at the table and he flinches away when Rod leans forward like he’s going to touch one. Dean looks down at his arms and remembers each scar. Each time he proved he was human by opening up a vein with a silver dagger, bearing his blood to Sam, to Bobby, Hell, to his father too. Dean grabs his beer and takes a long swig. 

 

“What d’ya want me ta say about it?” he asks. It’s not like he can tell them that they’re his proof. His proof that he’s human. 

 

And every once in a while. Just once or twice. He reopens one of the wounds and makes sure of it. Makes sure he is real. That he is still alive. Still human. Without Sam he is alienated, distorted, bent out of shape, but the silver kept telling him he is still human. The scars proved it. 

 

“Was it like.. a teenage angst thing?” Rod asks. He looks genuinely curious, and he doesn’t think he’s being malicious, or at least he doesn’t mean for it to come out that way. 

 

Dean shakes his head. It was more like a ‘whole life sucks thing’. But again. He can’t say that. 

 

“Yeah, sure, call it whatever you want,” he says, looking down at the table again and swallowing down more beer. He wishes Sam were here. Wishes he had his brother by his side to validate his scars. To make every one of them mean something again. Sam had matching scars too. He would catch sight of them every once in a while and smile, knowing that Sam was human, and here, and alive. He’d saved him. Kept him safe. 

 

Now all of that was gone. Sam was in a worse Hell than Dean was, but by Dean’s logic they were both in Hell either way. Dean was trapped explaining away things that used to mean something to him. Things that used to mean family, and safe, and not monsters yet. 

 

Degraded to ‘teenage angst’. 

 

“Really? I woulda thought you’d had a great time in high school,” Rod continues. “You don’t seem like a cutter,” he adds, lower. 

 

Dean’s eyes flash up to Rod and they’re black with anger, sharp enough to slit his throat if looks could kill. 

 

It’s not even anything that Rod said, it’s just the implication that he’d intentionally hurt himself because he felt bad. What use was he dead? What use was he fucking disabled or weaker in any way? That shit got you killed, and he’s suggesting that Dean would put people’s lives in danger because he felt like shit? 

 

Dean throws a twenty down on the table and stands up. “See you at work,” he grits out, leaving the table at a quick march. 

 

He hasn’t felt that way about hunting or saving lives in years. Even before turning housewife and moving to suburbia. What use was he now? Manual labor? Dean was nothing if not a fucking dead beat useless piece of muscle that used to have a purpose. Now he doesn’t have anything. 

 

He has an obligation. A promise to fulfill. And that’s what he’s doing. He’s being true to his brother. And damnit if Sam hadn’t made him promise, he’d be dead or trying to bring Sam back. That’s his purpose. Look after Sam. Keep his brother safe. Clear as a bell. 

 

Dean drives the truck slow as dirt, practicing his smile for Lisa. He needs to be able to smile for her. Even just a quirk of the lips. But he can’t. just another thing he can’t come through on. He can’t be happy when every fiber that he has is screaming for Sam. Screaming that Sam is gone. That nothing has worked to bring him back. That he’s seeing things when he sees the mop of floppy brown hair darting through a farmer’s market. 

 

He stops the car. He won’t cry. He won’t. But he can’t drive. So he sits. He sits and breathes and feels the tension settle into his spine and pull tight the muscles in his back. Not crying. His throat closes and he can’t even breathe right now because Sam is gone. He can’t breathe without Sam and Adam’s in Hell too, and it’s because he couldn’t do his damn job. He couldn’t keep Sammy out of trouble, he couldn’t take the pain, he got off the rack and broke the first seal, started Sam on the track to despair and pain and it’s all his fucking fault...

 

Dean forces himself to breathe and it’s a miracle he doesn’t pass out, but he stays awake and starts driving again. He can smile now. Fake it. He’s back in Hell and he always had a smile there, so why is this any different? Just smile and take the pain. This time he won’t crack. This time he’ll keep strong. He won’t screw it up. This is what Sam wants him to do. So he needs to do it. 

 

So he will. He’ll suffer through Hell and the pain. He’ll take it and he won’t flinch this time. 

 

Because he’s gotta stick to his word. He’ll stick to the word he gave Sam that he would live an apple pie life with a gaping hole in his soul that he can’t fill and he’ll make everyone believe he’s living the dream. 

  
Not living through Hell all over again. 

 

 

He never says another word to Rod. 


End file.
